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10 key business requirements to look out for in a BusinessIntelligence / Analytics NetSuite partner solution

NETSUITE ANALYTICSBUYER’S GUIDE

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Preface

This guide is the culmination of my experience building and implementing business intelligence and analytics products during thepast 15 years. During this time, I had the fortune of working with many leading organizations that leveraged analytics to improve theiroperations. If you are NetSuite customer that has outgrown NetSuite’s native reporting capabilities and find yourselves downloadingyour data in Excel, then this guide is for you. While I don’t pretend to have all the answers, I hope you will find some of the content usefulas you proceed in your analytics journey.

Thank you for reading.Deepak Deolalikar

About the authorDeepak leads product management at iCharts, a visual analytics so�ware company re-imagining howpeople interact with data. Prior to iCharts, Deepak spent 10 years leading Business Intelligence (BI)projects for global consulting companies. He received his MBA from the Haas School of Businessat UC Berkeley and Columbia University and his B.Eng. in Computer Science from MS University, India. Youcan connect with Deepak on LinkedIn here.

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Table of Contents

0. Introduction: Context to help you recognize why analytics is important and when to know you ‘ve outgrown NetSuite’s native reporting

1. Ease-of-use: Capabilities for your users to visually interact with the analytics

2. Flexibility: Level of IT support required and ability of business users to create and visualize analytics on their own

3. Scalability: Technical requirements and ability to scale to all business users in your organization

4. NetSuite integration: Degree to which analytics platform is integrated with NetSuite, including NetSuite certification

5. Real-time: Ability to visualize real-time data versus prepared (aggregated) data

6. External (non-NetSuite) data: Ability to visualize external data within your NetSuite dashboard

7. Security: Compliance with industry-leading security / privacy standards and NetSuite’s Single-Sign-On and role permissions

8. Deployment: SaaS / cloud versus on-premise, including hybrid deployment

9. Collaboration / Sharing: Ability to export, share with non-NetSuite users and annotate analytics for further context

10. Mobile access: Platforms covered, native versus HTML and optimized mobile user experience

11. Resources: A simple worksheet to help you evaluate each vendor and a listing of NetSuite’s key Business Intelligence / Analytics partners

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I‘ve outgrown NetSuite’s native reporting, now what?

If you find yourselves asking this question, then this guide is for you.

By now most organizations, from large global leaders to emerging high-growth companies are leveraging visual analytics to extractinsights from their data in order to make better decisions. If you are a NetSuite customer, you likely started by using NetSuite’s native reporting and analytics capabilities to visualize your ERP,CRM and e-commerce data in order to extract the right insights to improve your operations. You have been using NetSuite’s pre-builtreports of pre-defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to quickly and easily identify trends and hotspots in your business thatrequire further attention.

If this describes your situation, you are likely exporting your data into other tools such as Excel to get what you need and you are likelyfrustrated by the manual e�ort involved.Now, here is the good news… NetSuite has a strong ecosystem of business intelligence and analytics partners to help you. The rest ofthis document will guide you through ten key questions to ask the vendors you are evaluating in order to make the right decisions foryour organization. For your convenience, we have also included a list of the key partners and a short evaluation form to help you capturethe results of your evaluation.

Chances are you have outgrown the native reporting capabilities for a number of reasons, otherwise you wouldn’t have read this far.For example, you may need more flexibility in:

Types of visual analytics available (e.g., di�erent KPIs, chart types, color themes and placement)

User interactivity (e.g., filters, pivoting, drill-down to transactions)

Visualizing external data (e.g., from other systems such as Salesforce CRM, external market share data, Google Analytics,social media, etc.)Exporting the analytics to embed in presentations, etc.

0. Introduction

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• How long does it take for a business user to become fully productive? Does the solution require extensive training?

• Can users change the chart types interactively (e.g., from a line chart to a bar graph)?

• Can users further filter the views relevant to them?

• Can they pivot the data?

• Are there any drill-down capabilities o�ered (e.g., to the transaction level)?

Business users are no longer satisfied with just discovering and analyzing dataSource: Forrester Research

What is itThis section will help you determine whether ease-of-use is important to you and how to evaluate it.

Why it’s importantThe power of visual analytics increases exponentially when business users in your organization are able to access and interact with them. While many tools, including NetSuite’s native reporting, o�er standard out-of-the-box analytics, the ability for users to interact with theanalytics are limited. Think through how important such features are for your organization.

Questions to ask

1. Ease-of-use

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• How much training is required to create new visual analytics?• How many chart types (e.g., line charts, bar graphs, pie charts) are available?•••

Are you able to define your own metrics (e.g. , calculated fields) and pivots?Can you add your own filters (e.g., organizational or geographical hierarchy)?Are you able to customize the look-and-feel of the analytics?

In 2014, SMB-focused vendors will [focus]…more on how their solutions enable and empower betterinsights and decision-making

Source: SMB Group

What is itThis section will help you determine whether flexibility in creating and customizing visual analytics is important to you andhowto evaluate it.

Why it’s importantLarge organizations typically rely on a centralized group of data / IT analysts that are responsible for creating the various analytics andreports for their organizations to use. Even in these cases, these teams quickly become the bottleneck in addressing the varying needs ofdi�erent teams. If you do not have such a team or are looking for more flexibility, ensure that your business users can use the platformyou select. For example, would you like your Sales Operations team to create and customize the analytics for your management and evensales representatives without the need to involve your IT group? The types of charts and customization details will vary based on yourneeds and level of sophistication. Selecting a platform that gives you the flexibility you think you may need, will allow you to scale as yourneeds evolve (more on that in the next chapter).

Questions to ask

2. Flexibility

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• What is the largest implementation in terms of users of your vendor?

• How do new users get on-boarded? How much training is required?

• Does the solution provide advanced features for power users? What are they?

What is itThis section will help you determine whether scalability is important to you and how to evaluate it.

Why it’s important

While many organizations initially deploy analytics to a limited number of power users, the value of analytics increases exponentiallywhen everyone in your organization, from your front-line employees to the CEO has access to analytics to make informed decisions.Besides the obvious technical requirements of a solution being able to scale to hundreds or thousands of users, selecting a platformthat can serve the needs of both power and casual users may therefore be very important.

Questions to ask

3. Scalability

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• Are the analytics available directly within your NetSuite dashboard?

• Do you have to sign in to the analytics solution separately, or does it leverage NetSuite’s Single-Sign-On feature?

• Does it leverage NetSuite’s role and user permissions or do you have to separately assign those for your analytics users?

• Are you able to create analytics based on familiar NetSuite concepts (e.g., saved searches)?

• Is it ‘Built For NetSuite’-certified?

NetSuite Partners who have demonstrated compliance with the documented practices for architecture,development, privacy and security…have earned a Built for NetSuite badge

Source: NetSuite

What is itThis section will help you determine whether a solution fully integrated within NetSuite is important to your business.

Why it’s important

Deploying an analytics solution that is completely integrated within NetSuite will likely be very important for your business. Besides theobvious productivity benefits of not having to log-in to a separate system to view your analytics, being able to visualize your businessresults in the context of your business processes will increase the overall e�ectiveness of your ability to make the right decisions.

Questions to ask

4. NetSuite integration

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• Do the analytics get rendered directly based on the underlying NetSuite transactional data? If not,…

• How does the data get prepared for analytics?

• Can you control the preparation frequency?

• Can business users prepare the data or does it require IT support?

What is itThis section will help you determine whether access to real-time analytics is important to your business.

Why it’s important

Visualizing your business results in real-time is becoming increasingly important. The importance of such a feature can vary dependingon your industry and business function (e.g., visualizing real-time sales or pipeline, accounts receivable). Most traditional BusinessIntelligence platforms require that data be extracted and pre-aggregated before the analytics can be presented. While you can usuallycontrol the frequency of such transformations, the analytics will rarely be real-time and there is additional overhead required.

Questions to ask

5. Real-time

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What is itThis section will help you determine the importance of having non-NetSuite data presented alongside your NetSuite data in youranalytics dashboards.

Why it’s important

Most organizations rely on multiple systems to run their business. For instance, in addition to NetSuite, you could be using Salesforcefor CRM, Google Analytics for your web analytics, etc. Furthermore, you may have a need to bring in external data for certain dashboards(e.g., visualize your market share in relation to your revenue growth, social media interactions in relation to your marketing conversions).Being able to visualize all your business data right within NetSuite, regardless of the source, is therefore likely an important requirement.

• Can you visualize any non-NetSuite data? If so,…

• Does the vendor provide (near) real-time access to other systems (e.g., Salesforce, Microso� Dynamics, Google Analytics, Google Drive, etc.)

• Do they provide an Application Programming Interface (API) to allow you to build connections with other systems?

• Are you able to directly upload csv/Excel files directly into the tool?

• Is there support for big data sources, such as MapReduce and other NoSQL databases?

Questions to ask

6. External data

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What is itThis section will help you determine the level of security provided based on your business and / or regulatory requirements.

Why it’s important

Depending on your own company and industry requirements, there may be regulatory or business requirements that you need tocomply with. Access to unauthorized employees, lack of security or privacy standards at the vendor’s data center (if data is transferredout of your NetSuite instance to be processed) can, not only be detrimental to your business, but even illegal.

• How can employees access the solution? Does it require a separate login or does it leverage NetSuite’s Single-Sign-On and existing rolepermissions? If not,..

• Is connection to the platform via SSL / TLS? What certification is used (e.g., VeriSign / Symantec, GoDaddy)?

• Does it comply with the most common privacy standards (e.g., HIPAA, U.S.-EU Safe Harbor)?

• Does it carry any 3rd party certification (e.g., TRUSTe)?

• Does it extract your data from NetSuite and transform / store it somewhere else in order to render the analytics? If so, what security

protocols / mechanisms are in place to ensure your data is secure?

Questions to ask

7. Security

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• Is the solution fully deployed using a SaaS model or is this is an on premise o�ering, i.e., something you need to install on your serversor your users’ desktops?

• Do any of the features require any so�ware installation?

Cloud o�ers options to organizations that would rather not deal with BI stack complexitySource: Forrester Research

What is itThis section will help you determine if you need to install any so�ware, or whether the service is delivered in the Cloud via a SaaS model.

Why it’s important

SaaS-based deployment is a must for today’s enterprise systems, to not only ensure that your own scarce IT resources are not required,but also ensure you always have access to the latest innovation. This is especially true for NetSuite customers, since NetSuite is 100%SaaS-based.

Questions to ask

8. Deployment

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• Can you export the analytics? If so, what formats are supported (e.g., jpg, png, pdf, csv, etc.)

• Can you annotate / comment on the charts for additional context?

• Can you share your charts with others in your organization that may not have access to NetSuite?

Collaboration…enables users to share and discuss information, analysis, analytic content and decisionsvia discussion threads, chat and annotations

Source: Gartner

What is itThis section will help you determine what collaboration features the solution o�ers.

Why it’s important

In today’s business environment, collaboration is becoming increasingly important. While other NetSuite users may have access to theanalytics, the ability to share those with non-NetSuite users (for e.g., embedding into presentations), annotate and comment on may beimportant to your business.

Questions to ask

9. Collaboration / sharing

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• Which parts of the analytics solution are available on a mobile device? Can you e.g., create new visualizations or just view?

• Is mobile access provided through HTML or natively?

• If the latter, which platforms are supported (e.g., Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows)?

• Is the mobile user experience optimized for a mobile device?

Mobile BI...enables organizations to develop and deliver content to mobile devices…and takes advantage of mobile devices'native capabilities,such as touchscreen, camera, location awareness and natural-language query.

Source: Gartner

What is itThis section will help you determine the features available on a mobile device.

Why it’s important

In today’s 24x7 connected world, ability to access your analytics via a mobile device is a must. Depending on your industry andrequirements, these might be extensive; at the very minimum expect a subset of your visual analytics to be available on a mobile device.

Questions to ask

10. Mobile access

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Feel free to use the following worksheet to rank the importance of each of the requirements outlined in the document and rank eachvendor you are evaluating (e.g., 1=Low, 10=High):

11. Vendor Evaluation Checklist

NETSUITE ANALYTICS VENDOR CHECKLIST

Capability

Example feature

1. Ease-of-use

2. Flexibility

3. Scalability

4. NetSuite integration

5. Real-time

6. Integration with external(non-NetSuite) data

7. Security

8. Deployment

9. Collaboration / sharing

10. Mobile access

e.g. 6 e.g. 4 e.g. 9 e.g. 6

Importance Vendor #1 Vendor #2 Vendor #3

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For your convenience, we are including a list of the general-purpose Business Intelligence / Analytics NetSuite partners. The completelist of partners is available at SuiteApp.com. All of the information below is derived from public sources.

1. ‘Built For NetSuite’ is NetSuite’s certification program for so�ware partners. Data as of July 2014.

11. NetSuite Business Intelligence and Analytics Partners

Vendor (Product)

Adaptive Insights( Adaptive Discovery for NetSuite )

Provide powerful yet intuitivesolutions that fundamentallychange the world of businessanalytics for companies andnonprofits of all sizes

USA CorporatePerformanceManagement

No

Birst( Birst )

Enterprise-caliber BI born inthe cloud

USA BusinessIntelligence

No

Good Data ( Good Data for NetSuite )

Change the way the worldexperiences business intelligence

USA BusinessIntelligence

No

iCharts( iCharts for NetSuite )

Turbo Visualization in the Cloud USA VisualAnalytics

Yes

Vendor tagline Headquarters(website)

Best known for1

440 North Wolfe Road, Sunnyvale, CA 94085

Call us: +1.650.472.0650

Email us: info@icharts.net

http://www.icharts.net

request demo

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SELF-SERVICE:Visualize your NetSuite data with no IT support in minutes

EMBEDDED:Access your analytics within your NetSuite dashboard

REAL-TIME:Retrieve your up-to-the-minute NetSuite data all the time

MASHUPS:Integrate non-NetSuite data to get a 360o view of your business

iCharts for NetSuite benefits

iglobal leaders to emerging high-growth companies that use iCharts to visualize their rich data sets and share them publicly or privately. We are a ‘Built For NetSuite’-certified NetSuite partner and are proud to have been recently

FastCompany.

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